One of the most powerful poems by the russian poet Sergei Yesenin [subtitles]
Poem: Never have I felt so weary
Author: Sergey Yesenin
Read by: Anatoly Suprunyuk
Text of the poem:
Never have I felt so weary
In this slush and wintry gray —
Ryazan skies in dreams grew near me,
And my reckless, wasted way.
Many women gave affection,
I returned it more than once —
Was it not that dark obsession
Made me turn to wine at once?
Drunken nights — a stream unending,
Wild despair, not something new...
Is it why my gaze is bending,
Like a worm through leaves of blue?
I don't ache from love's betrayal,
Nor do triumphs bring me cheer —
Golden hair, once bright and frail,
Turns to ash and disappears.
Ashes fall in streams and rivers
As the autumn mists descend.
No regret for time that withers —
Nothing do I wish to mend.
I am tired of aimless grieving,
And with some strange smile I wear,
In this lightened frame I'm leaving
Dead men’s peace and silent air.
Now it’s easy — dull and squalid —
To crawl from dive to dive each night,
Like a straitjacket we’ve solid-
Caged the woods in walls of blight.
And in me, by the same condition,
Rage and fervor fade and yield —
Still, I bow in recognition
To the fields I loved, the field.
To the lands where once I tumbled,
Played in grass beneath the skies —
To the sparrows and crows that grumbled,
And the owl with tearful cries.
I call out through spring’s blue distance:
"Little birds, in trembling flight,
Tell them all of my resistance —
Let the wind now take my fight,
Thrash the rye with fists of night."
